“And you wish me to… consult with him on this topic?” Myca asked, neutrally.
“Yes. You may use whatever resources you require on the journey and in the process. You may offer Ioan whatever reassurances he requires, in my name, to sweeten the prospect. But his acceptance is essential, and his refusal is not an option that may be seriously entertained.” Symeon’s tone was likewise neutral, but Myca knew a command when he heard one.
“It will be done.” Myca replied, quietly. “And Nikita of Sredetz?”
“I can see that the Archbishop of Nod has captured your imagination.” Dryly. “Very well. For now, Nikita of Sredetz may keep his head. And I trust that you will keep your grasp on yours.”
Myca bowed from the neck. “Of course, my sire.” When he looked up, Symeon’s expression had softened an almost imperceptible fraction.
“You have done well for me, these many years, Myca. I am more proud of you and your accomplishments than I find it easy to express.” Symeon glanced away from him, turning to look through the shutters at the night-darkened garden beyond. “You have done your duty and more for me without fear, without compulsion, for my ambitions and your own. And you have done me the great honor of not pretending toward ingenuousness or a lack of personal ambition. I found, and continue to find, your honesty very refreshing.”
Myca felt a pang and forced his face to remain still, pushing down a surge of guilt and dismay that almost moved his tongue to speak of Ilias.
“I think it is time that I permitted you a touch more freedom than I have in the past, to pursue such interests as you have developed, independent of my own.” Symeon turned his dark gaze back on Myca, and smiled slightly. “Complete this mission for me, my childe. Ensnare Ioan Brancoveanu in a web of diplomacy from which he cannot escape, and end the blood feud between Lukasz and Rachlav. When this is done, you have my permission to investigate the matter of Nikita of Sredetz until you are fully content. Only when you are satisfied will I act, and I will do so in accord with your recommendation. Do we have an agreement?”
Myca bowed again, more deeply, from the shoulders and fought down a triumphant smile. “Yes, my lord. This thing will be done, as you wish it.”
“Good. Now, come. We will dine together in the solar and tomorrow, you will begin your mission.”
The rain stopped some time after midnight, and Symeon of Constantinople repaired to his small garden to walk and to think. In the wing of the villa given over the private quarters of the family, his childe was making ready to depart, selecting the members of the staff who would accompany him, setting the packing of his baggage in motion, and, no doubt, writing letters. Myca had a ritual that he observed faithfully at the beginning of every enterprise, and tonight he was doubtlessly doing so with the intent of starting and finishing quickly. A certain fondness warmed Symeon’s heart—he could not truthfully call the emotion “love,” for the last of everything he truly loved had crumbled to ash in Constantinople—but it was a tender sentiment nonetheless. Myca reminded him very much of himself at that age, at times, and that realization never failed to stir nostalgia for a time before pain, before betrayal and fire and death.
A shadow materialized before him, beneath one of the pitch-soaked torches that lit the garden path, tall and lean and straight, clad in a heavy woolen cloak that failed to disguise his deformity. Malachite bowed, deeply, carefully, and straightened. “May I walk with you, my lord?”
“I shall always welcome your company, my Lord Malachite, and your wisdom.” Symeon offered a polite bow of his own, and together the two vampires continued their perambulation in silence for several moments.
Malachite broke it, with his quiet strong voice, as they passed the bright-lit wing of the villa that housed the family quarters. “Your childe, my lord, young Myca… I fear for him. I fear that he has fallen into… bad company.”
“You are referring,” Symeon replied dryly, “to his plaything, the so-called koldun, Ilias cel Frumos.”
Malachite hesitated fractionally, then nodded. “He claims the heathen as his advisor.”
“And I am certain that the heathen does, in fact, advise him. I am not ignorant of the little koldun’s presence in my territory, Malachite, or his service in my childe’s bed. Myca is not the only one with eyes and hands in many places.” A faint smile touched the corners of Symeon’s mouth. “I do not, however, fear his influence. Myca belongs to me, and always has, and the freedoms I allow him make him placid in the jesses. He flies where I will, and does as I wish.”
“For now,” Malachite murmured, the contradiction in his tone mild.
“Forever.” Symeon plucked a green bud off a bush in passing, rolling it between his fingertips. “For now, I am content to let Myca keep his plaything. It ultimately does no harm, and may even do some good. The koldun lineages are few, any longer, and sheltering a koldun within one’s court is a mark of some honor among the clan. In this way is this creature useful to me, as well. So long as he continues to be useful, and Myca continues to do his duty as he should, there need be no quarrel between us.”
Malachite nodded silently. If he had any other thoughts, or any other objections, he kept them to himself.
Interlude
Michael came to me at a time when I was simultaneously weary and restless, discontent and unsettled in my existence and as without peace as it was possible for me to be. I had, in truth, been restless and without peace for many dozens of years, if not centuries; decades passed in which I thought myself content in my loneliness, in the absence of companionship, living the ascetic life of the mind. I might even have been content, for solitude is not abhorrent to me when solitude is what I truly desire. It is not, however, always what I desire.
One would almost have to have been there to appreciate the impact that Michael had upon me when we first met. It was like watching the sunrise over the sea and not being burned when he came into my presence that first night on Cyprus. Rarely had I met anyone his equal—his equal in beauty, his equal in wit, his equal in passion. We were not lovers, not at first, though it was not for want of desire between us. I had been alone for so long, alone and wretched in my loneliness, in my self-imposed exile, in my desire to touch nothing and let nothing touch me, that it took a great deal of time and effort to coax me out of myself again. Michael was not insistent, nor demanding, nor over-eager. He was patient and gentle, and at first he gave me only what I needed—a friend, a compassionate ear, and a voice of wise counsel. He seduced first my mind and my heart. Then he claimed my body and my soul. Laying in his arms, making love to him, was like being touched by love itself, joining with something greater than I could ever hope to be alone, becoming part of something vaster and more permanent than any act or work that I could myself conceive.
It is odd, now that Michael is gone, that I can recall so much that was good in him, and forget all else as I choose. I loved him then, and I love him still, and I can remember the things that made me love him without pain, without shame, without feeling manipulated, misused, and betrayed. I loved him, even when he turned to Antonius solely to cause me pain. I loved him, even when I saw what he was becoming in his madness, what he would do when that madness finally consumed him. I loved him even when he did not truly love me any longer, for I could not help myself—he had become a part of me, inextricable as my own flesh, my own bone. A part of me died when I turned away from him, when I left him as much to save myself as to save him. My presence could not save him, but I hoped against hope that my absence could. I knew that staying would drag me down in madness along with him, and destroy everything that I tried to create.
I loved him, and I abandoned him to his destruction. There are not enough words in all the world to define how much I despise myself for that cowardice.
Part Two
Dragon’s Eyes
Odio et amo: quare id faciem, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. (I love and I
hate. You ask me why this is so; I
do not know, but I
feel it, and it torments me.)
—Catullus
Chapter Eleven
Winter released its grip on the mountains grudgingly. Three weeks passed from Myca’s departure before the weather warmed enough for rain to fall regularly, and the snowmelt to begin in earnest. The ground in the monastery garden began thawing, and the trees in the monastery orchard grew red with sap and began to bud. Ilias, witnessing this from within the confines of a cloister belonging to a faith not his own, grew restless, wanting to be out among the trees, listening to the quickening rhythms of the earth. He remained at the monastery only because the road was still too chancy to rely upon, being covered most of its length in a revolting mixture of mud and rapidly disintegrating slush, unfit for the feet of men or beasts.
Three more weeks passed, and the worst of the rains eased, though it remained windy. The monks told Ilias that the forests on the lower slopes were fully in bud, a beautiful sight during the day, and he silently envied them their ability to witness that sight. Snow lingered now only on those heights that were always snowy, and the darkest, coolest parts of the valleys. Another week, and the road was almost dry enough to ride, consisting of only three inches of mud instead of ten. Ilias decided to give it another week, and put his servants to work grinding salt and herbs, packing ritual implements, and acquiring equipment sufficient for the purpose he had in mind. Father Aron was somewhat bemused by a few of the requests he received that week, but provided all the buckets and floor-scrubbing implements they required.
Ilias and his four most favored servants departed the monastery early one evening, descending the hill carefully, and made for a traveler’s hostel maintained by the Obertus brothers on the road that led to Brasov. The hostel, forewarned of their coming, had rooms prepared for their daylight rest, which Ilias at least took advantage of. The four mortals napped for a few hours, accepted the meal that the Obertus brothers offered them, then rode off again along a track that the hostler-monks knew led into the dense forest to the west, rather than into the city itself. They departed carrying much of the baggage and a supply of their own food. They did not return as the day grew late, making the brothers a bit fearful for their safety. When Ilias awoke at sunset, they broached the matter to him and he, touched by their concern, informed the brothers that his servants were in no danger. They had ridden ahead to prepare his house for him, which was only a short distance into the forest. Then he also departed, amused beyond the capacity for words.
Ilias was not at all alarmed by the failure of his servants to return, for he realized there would be a great deal of work to do at the sanctuary. The winter had been harsh, and detritus had no doubt accumulated accordingly. He also knew that those he had chosen were up to the task, the most dedicated of his personal followers. He rode in their tracks, lighting the way with a lantern on a long pole, following the route he had mapped out for them and the way-markers he himself had placed. Here, a tree split by lightning, still standing despite the ferocity of the winter wind; there, a huge mossy boulder, almost precisely triangular, jutting out of the leaf-mould like a fang. The trees were, indeed, all in bud, their branches lashed by the blustery spring wind, last autumn’s damp leaves drifting across the path. The forest thickened as he approached the sanctuary itself, and the path grew narrower. He dismounted, and led his placid and well-trained mount the last stretch. Though the thick-clustered trees, he caught a glimmer of light from the candle-lamps outside the small structure of the sanctum itself and heard the sound of horses whickering from the animal enclosure behind it.
The temple of Jarilo was not an elaborate structure, but it was adequate for its purposes. Its sanctum was a low, round building of wood and stone, roofed in wooden tiles, lacking windows, containing little besides an open space of floor for a small congregation to sit and a low wooden altar for offerings. For most of the year, Ilias left it untended, that those who wished to come and make their offerings and devotions in privacy could do so. During the months from planting to high summer, he spent most of his nights there, acting in the position for which his sire had Embraced him, the immortal witch-priest, servant to the god of the reborn earth, the bright beauties of spring. The rest of the sanctuary he let grow wild, a forested expanse of hidden glades and quick-running streams, with only one large assembly area, the wooden circle where the rites of high summer, the feast of Kupala, were usually held.
From what he could see, his servants had done well, gathering up the deadfall wood and stacking it beneath a heavy leather covering in the lee of the sanctum, and sweeping clean the stone walkway leading up to the building. He took his horse to the animal enclosure, and there found Miklos on watch, tending the beasts and guarding against predators, for wolves prowled the woods. The boy leapt up to help him, and Ilias gave him the reins and a cool-lipped kiss of thanks, which he blushed to accept.
“The cleansing goes well?” Ilias asked, glancing about the enclosure. It, too, appeared swept clean, the hay and oats fresh, the water troughs well filled.
“Very well, koldun. We finished the sanctum and the area around it first, as you asked. There wasn’t as much damage as we feared—the roof didn’t lose any tiles this year.” Miklos smiled, his gray eyes alight with humor. “Nico complained about the dust, but he always does, and there were a great many offerings left. We saved them in the chest you gave us.”
“Excellent. The others are asleep?”
“Yes, koldun.”
“Then I’ll not wake them.” Ilias reached up and removed a woolen cloak lined in fur from the pannier of his saddle. “Someone is going to replace you?”
“Yes, koldun. Sergiusz made Nico and Teo promise to take turns before we did anything else.” Again, his little grin lit his face, and Ilias patted his cheek gently.
“Good. I shall return before dawn. Do not forget to sleep, Miklos.”
And, so saying, Ilias went to walk beneath the trees of his own sanctuary, the place that was his and his alone.
That day, as he slept safe in the windowless darkness of the sanctum, Ilias dreamed strange dreams. In his ears, a solemn voice spoke a language he did not know, softly but with great urgency. In his mind’s eye, images flickered but refused to come into focus, smears of color spreading across the inside of his thoughts, indistinct but profoundly disturbing. He woke unsettled in his nest of sleeping furs behind the altar, screened off against stray light passing through the seams of the door, and lay for a moment trying to convince his mind to yield up a single coherent thought. As he did, a single image came to him: a tall figure, dark of hair and lithe of form, clad all in red silk, his hair trailing nearly to the floor, walking between columns of blue marble, as though he were in a dream, or dreams made flesh himself.
Ilias sat up slowly, and took several deep, deliberate breaths to calm himself. He felt, for no reason that he could name, that he should know who that man was, should know him as he knew his own blood and flesh, but could not see his face. It chilled him to the bone.
It took four days and nights to prepare the sanctuary to Ilias’ satisfaction. By day the four boys labored physically, sweeping paths clean, gathering fallen wood, carting away last year’s ashes from the several fire pits scattered about the sanctuary. By night, Ilias offered a spiritual cleansing, scattering the paths with herbs and fragrant oils, renewing the circles of salt and blood that delineated the boundaries of the wooden circle, its carven plinths cleansed with saltwater. Slowly, he felt the presence of the spirits and the gods returning, waking after a long winter’s rest. The trees murmured to each other in their own tongues and, out of the corner of his eyes, he caught the bright flicker of their souls and their attendant spirits as the air warmed and the buds began to unfurl.
Ilias brought his tools with him, and by day had them placed in the clearing outside the wooden circle—a small altar carved from the heartwood of a lightning-struck beech tree, a carved stone bowl, a wooden bucket of water drawn from a spring in the sanctuary. Wh
en he rose that night, he bathed himself in salted water and dressed in a long white tunic and a circlet made of beaten gold in the shape of flowers and vines. Sergiusz and Nicolaus, having slept much of the day, were awake and accompanied him as he walked the path to the circle, barefoot, carrying the symbols of his office, a human skull in one hand, and a sheaf of last autumn’s wheat in the other. Sergiusz went first, carrying an iron candle-lamp in one hand and a bag of salt and herbs in the other. Nico followed behind, carrying four beeswax candles and the bag containing two handfuls of Nikita’s grave-earth.
Overhead, the sky was clear and star-strewn, and the moon was dark. Sergiusz’s lamp provided the only light as they stepped into the clearing. He stood, a silver-gilt sentinel, as Ilias carried the altar and the bowl into the circle of wooden plinths and laid the skull and the wheat upon it. Nicolaus gave him the candles, which he lit and placed on the altar; the water, he poured into the bowl. Sergiusz gave him the salt, and Nicolaus gave him the earth; he kissed them both in thanks and murmured, “Go back to the sanctum. I shall return before dawn.”
They went. Ilias stepped across the lines of blood and salt sanctifying the circle, and knelt before the altar, soaking his tunic and his legs in dew. The salt, ground together with visionary herbs, he used to trace a circle around the bowl, and lay a bit beneath his tongue. He left it there to melt, savoring the bitterness, closing his eyes and feeling the power welling up within him. The words came to him easily, the invocations of water and earth, calling upon the spirits to open wide his eyes, to show him what he needed to see. With his thumbnail, he slit open his wrist and dripped nine drops of his own blood into the waters filling his vision-bowl. With that same hand, he reached into the bag of Nikita’s earth, and added to the water nine pinches of that earth, dark and grainy, oddly textured against Ilias’ fingertips.
Dark Ages Clan Novel Tzimisce: Book 13 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga Page 9